B8 A4 Battery charge

[Bluesmurff09]

Hi,

My battery does charge from the alternator but doesn't charge up fully.

At the beginning of this week it was half charged (5 bars) and after 50 miles each day (250 in total) its only charged to seven bars out of 10.

How do I find out if there is a problem with the altrrnator or not, is this normal?

Thanks

Mat

[s4tronic]

Bluesmurff09 said:

Hi,

My battery does charge from the alternator but doesn't charge up fully.

At the beginning of this week it was half charged (5 bars) and after 50 miles each day (250 in total) its only charged to seven bars out of 10.

How do I find out if there is a problem with the altrrnator or not, is this normal?

Thanks

Mat

battery may be on the way out rather than alternator not working as expected. Capacity can reduce with time.

[Bluesmurff09]

Hmm I charged the battery fully with a charger but it doesn't seem to want to charge fully again using the alternator.

[PositronicRay]

By "bars" do you mean the MMI display? If so ignore it.

It's not linear, I thought Audi had dropped this "feature" after it was 1st introduced in the A8 because it caused confusion.

[Bluesmurff09]

Hi what do you mean by its not linear?

I had it switched on from the hidden mmi menu.

Thanks


Mat

[PositronicRay]

Dr G or TT will be able to explain it better. But when it's showing say 50% it doesn't mean 50% battery charge. They can go down to 10% and still start the car fine.

It'll be hidden for a reason, to stop people flapping.

A bit like the temp gauge always sitting dead centre. The temp actually goes up and down but as long as it's in the normal range it stays static, in the middle, that way people won't worry.

[Bluesmurff09]

Maybe it's like the mmi oil reading which replaces a dipstick, which means when it gets to low you need to top up not that you have run out of oil.

[Bluesmurff09]

Bump.

Dr G are you able to shed any light on this?


Thanks

Mat

[Paul-2o1qv]

Bluesmurff09 said:

I had it switched on from the hidden mmi menu.




Mat

Why do you think its switch off from factory.

Its doent read true so they dont use it.

You've turned it on ignoring the manifacturers spec and dont like how it works.

[Bluesmurff09]

I never mentioned that I don't like how it works, I asked is it accurate!!

How do you know it isn't accurate, if it wasn't it wouldn't be on the mmi at all would it?

Some specs are turned on for specific countries depending on legal requirements.

Thanks


Mat